As Nature Intended
by Kizzia
Summary: Sherlock had never really acknowledged that he was an omega until John walked into his life and showed him what it was to love. Even then Sherlock still quashed the majority of his omega instincts and he certainly never allowed the impulse to breed and head space. But sometimes biology just won't be denied and now Sherlock no longer has a choice about accepting his true nature.


**Firstly disclaimer:** I don't own them, I'm not making any money, no copyright infringement intended.

**Secondly warnings:** This is Mpreg and Omegaverse, although the completely consensual kind. It's set just after TRF and there is mention of miscarriage in this first chapter.

**Thirdly author's note:** I could have just posted this chapter as a stand alone fic but there is far more of this story in my head than just this. I make no promises on the timing of further posts, however, as this is something I have to be in a particular mood to write but I can't see me leaving it alone for long as I have outlines for a further eight chapters. I should imagine there will be one a month at least.

**Fourthly another author's note:** I should say that Brad'sPyjamas has given me permission to use her version of Omegaverse and that she has also been gracious enough to beta this for me, despite being so short of time herself at the moment.

* * *

**Chapter 1 - What once was lost ...**

Sherlock makes it back to the house but he barely manages to shut the front door before his last scraps of control desert him and he sinks down onto the floor, curling in on himself in an attempt to dull the ache deep inside. A small part of his mind notes that this is one of the few places, given that it only smells of polish, that doesn't make his nausea worse but that thought is soon pushed aside by the tremors wracking his body.

This isn't normal, that much he knows, but he thinks that if he just stays on the floor for a bit, gives in to his body's demands for a few moments, that he will feel better. Well, not better but he'll be able to get himself up to his room and bury his face in John's shirt and that tiny injection of John's scent will be enough to get him through. After all, they're only separated by distance, not death, he shouldn't be reacting so strongly.

Only the pain in his abdomen isn't receding, in fact it's getting worse – pulsing and cramping in ever stronger and swifter waves - and he needs John. Needs his arms round him; needs his scent and his presence so strongly he can't think past it. All the logical, sensible reasoning that has kept him working alone these past six weeks burns away in the intensity of the desire and his hands are scrabbling for his mobile in seconds. He's shaking so badly that he's unsure what he actually types but he knows, as the pain spikes and he loses the battle to remain conscious, that he has pressed send.

oOo

'How could you not have realised?' a gloriously familiar voice is snarling somewhere above him but he can't muster the energy to fight his way upward through the blackness. 'He was in your house, Mycroft! He was _living_ with you! How could you not have seen?'

'I'm sorry, John,' Mycroft sounds so contrite, so genuinely distressed and unlike himself that Sherlock is unsure it's really him, 'he said he'd picked up a virus and I ...'

'You just took his word for it? He's your _brother_ for fuck's sake! How could you see him fading a little more every day and not _do_ something?'

'This is the first time I've seen him for almost a month. He's been undercover and … I honestly had no idea he'd deteriorated this badly, much less identified his condition. And I doubt he realised what was wrong either.'

John hisses his breath out between his teeth. 'That I don't doubt. I suspect his instincts had taken over when he sent that sorry excuse for a text. And thank God they had. If he hadn't sent it, if I hadn't got there when I did then ….' Sherlock feels one of John's hands curl round his own. 'I might have lost him, Mycroft. I might have lost them both.'

_Them? What does John mean them? And what didn't he realise?_ He tries again to push the blackness away and this time he gets his eyes open, struggling to focus through the brilliant whiteness that seems to be surrounding him.

'Sherlock, love, it's me. Can you hear me?' John's face appears in his line of vision and instantly he feels whole again.

'John,' he croaks, squeezing John's hand tightly, 'How?'

'I told you I'd always be there when you needed me.'

John's stroking his face with the hand Sherlock isn't clinging to and looking at him with such love and relief he doesn't know how to response, so he just says John's name again.

'Yes, it's me. I'm here now. You're going to be fine.'

'W-what happened?'

John's forehead creases and his smile is gone, lips pressed together in a thin line. 'Mycroft, get out. And you can make sure no one interrupts us.' His tone is flat but there is that specific hint of steel in there that Sherlock would not think to disobey and, judging by how swiftly he hears the click of the door, it has the same effect on Mycroft despite him being an alpha.

Sherlock opens his mouth to repeat his question but is foiled by John putting a straw in his mouth and saying, 'Sip very slowly. If you can keep this down we can think about getting you off the drip.'

Blinking, Sherlock looks down at his other hand, takes in the cannula, and then looks properly round the room. It's mostly white, very sterile, and there is a drip stand plus a variety of monitors to his left; all beeping softly with wires disappearing under the sheet he's covered with. Not Mycroft's house, not 221B but … his eyes flash over the door and the curtained windows separating the room from the corridor beyond and he immediately recognises the place and his stomach heaves, making him dry retch. It's where Father had him incarcerated after the incident when ... when ...

'Calm down, Sherlock. Breathe with me. You're safe, I promise,' John's back in front of him, their faces scant inches from each other. 'This isn't a correctional facility any more, love. It's now a private hospital that, amongst other things, houses Europe's leading gynaecological and obstetric clinic. Mycroft warned me being here might upset you but I had no choice. You were too far gone to risk anything but the best.'

It's John's scent more than his words - which don't make much sense - that actually allow Sherlock to get himself under control and all of a sudden there is only one thing he can think about, one possible course of action. Leaning forward he presses their mouths together, sighing at the rightness of the contact.

'Oh, I've missed this. Missed you,' John murmurs into the kiss, untangling their fingers so he can cradle Sherlock head in both his hands. 'Is this what you need right now?'

Sherlock just moans and parts his lips in mute appeal and John doesn't hesitate, running his tongue over the sweep of Sherlock's bottom lip and then delving inside to stroke Sherlock's tongue, teasing and testing until Sherlock is quite limp in his arms. Then, pressing a final, chaste kiss to Sherlock's forehead, he pulls away and gently manoeuvres Sherlock so he's once again lying back against the pillows. Sherlock thinks he ought to protest this treatment, being handled like he's something infinitely precious and unutterably fragile but his body is screaming that he should just acquiesce and so, for once, he does.

'Tell me,' he says instead, pleased the few mouthfuls of water he managed before he panicked have eased his throat. 'Tell me why I'm here.'

John settles himself more comfortably on the bed and takes Sherlock's free hand again, 'Can you tell me what the last thing you remember is?'

Sherlock closes his eyes briefly and tries to make sense of the jumbled images in his head, 'I'd made it back to Mycroft's. I was in pain and I couldn't think clearly. I needed you. I … I sent a text. Not sure what it said. I can remember pressing send and then … I was here. With you.'

'Yes, and here with me is exactly where you'll be staying for the foreseeable future.' John lifts their joined hands and presses a kiss to Sherlock's knuckles. 'You nearly died, Sherlock.'

'You weren't just saying that to make Mycroft feel guilty?'

'No!'

John glares at him and Sherlock shrinks back involuntarily, 'I didn't mean to …'

'Hush,' John's face is calm again, mouth twisting into a rueful smile. 'I'm not angry with you, I'm angry with me.'

'I don't understand.'

'I don't expect you to. Not yet. I need to tell you …' John swallows, hard, and squares his shoulders before continuing, 'I don't know how to do this.'

'Do what? What's wrong, John?'

'Nothing's wrong. Well, apart from the fact you pushed yourself so hard that you're suffering from malnutrition and exhaustion. And …. Oh hell, I'll just say it ... You're pregnant, Sherlock. Two and a half months pregnant … Just. You were miscarrying when I reached you and for a while I didn't know if it could be stopped.'

Sherlock feels his jaw dropping open as he stares at John, trying to discern some twitch or action that would belie the words he's just spoken.

He can't find anything.

John is telling him the truth.

'Say something, Sherlock,' John prompts, moving their joined hands over to rest on Sherlock's stomach.

'It does explain the symptoms,' his voice sounds hollow, even to his own ears, 'the tiredness, the nausea, the aching, clawing _need_ to be in your arms …. But I …. I never thought….'

'Why would you? It's rare, Sherlock, really rare.'

'Point nought one percent rare,' he practically spits, 'I know the stats. I know the theories behind self-triggering. I should have considered that my reaction to Moriarty's threats against you may have affected my last heat. I should have realised!'

John flinches and Sherlock's not surprised, he almost made himself jump. They sit in silence as he tries to get a grip on the thoughts racing through his head but he can't, his mind filled with the memory of the pain and the sense of loss that he'd had no frame of reference for at the time.

'I think I did know,' he murmurs eventually, 'subconsciously, anyway.'

'That's just hindsight,' John's tone is soft, as if he's talking down an easily spooked horse and Sherlock looks back up at him, tries to smile.

'Is it safe now?'

'The baby?'

Sherlock gives a single, jerky nod in response.

'Yes, the baby is safe. And, just as importantly, so are you.'

Sherlock stares down at their hands, watching John's thumb rub circles over his palm as their combined warmth seeps through the sheet to his belly.

'I thought the old wives tale about Omega's miscarrying if their bond-mate was absent during the pregnancy was just that, _a tale_,' he finds himself saying out loud and wincing at the plea for understanding in his voice. 'I've never come across any evidence that it was _true_.'

'Nor would you have done,' John presses himself closer, resting his head against Sherlock's and giving the edge of Sherlock's cheekbone a quick nuzzle with his nose, 'Hitler's obsession with controlling male omega's ability to breed is well know but the experiments he ordered conducting into omega breeding in general aren't widely publicised. Since they have no bearing on crime solving I expect you'd have deleted them, even if you had heard about them at all.'

'Probably,' Sherlock concedes, aware he sounds sulky as he adds, 'so I suggest you share your superior knowledge before we both go grey.'

John huffs a laugh into his temple. 'Well, I won't go into the details but the upshot was that his team proved, conclusively, that if you remove a pregnant omega from their mate _and_ all traces of the scent of their mate then they will go into labour within four weeks, regardless of the stage of gestation they've reached. Those in the early stages, they ….'

John stops, swallows and then shakes his head minutely and Sherlock doesn't need him to go on; his own stomach lurching at the thought of those omegas, trapped in sterile rooms, watched while they laboured, lost and died. Once he's certain he's not going to vomit he realises John's hands are shaking in his own and he suddenly, as if he's just been subjected to a cloudburst of sentiment, understands exactly how frantic John must have been when he found him.

'Well that explains why there isn't any non-experimental evidence,' he says. He's striving for brisk normality, wanting to pull John from whatever distressing scenarios are running through his head, but he just sounds stilted as he continues with, 'it takes over a year for bond scent to fade from most dwellings and it's practically unheard of for a pregnant omega to leave the family home, regardless of circumstances.' He runs that sentence through his head again and an unaccustomed sensation turns his stomach to lead and constricts his throat. He forces himself to speak his guilt anyway.

'Except I did leave. And I went somewhere you'd never set foot in and I only took one scrap of your clothing with me. And I didn't dare take that into Moran's lair. I …'

'You didn't know, love,' John says, turning so they are looking into each others eyes, 'you didn't know you were breeding, so how could you have known you needed to take precautions. If anyone is to blame it's me. You should never have felt you had to do this alone. I should have ...'

Sherlock narrows his eyes and snarls his top lip up. 'Don't you dare! Don't you dare try and make this your fault. You may be my Alpha but this was my choice. All of it - the plan, the fall, the hiding – all of it was me. I'm the one that got myself worked up enough about what Moriarty meant to do to you to self-trigger. I'm the one who insisted you play the part of grieving widower. I'm the one who nearly killed it!'

'But you didn't,' Mycroft speaks from just inside the doorway, making both John and Sherlock jump. Behind him is a petite red-haired woman who looks as agitated as Sherlock feels. 'You did what you had to do and then you listened to your body and acted on what you felt. You saved yourself and your unborn child, Sherlock, nothing more and nothing less. So the pair of you can stop all this ridiculous self-flagellation and let Nurse Hunter do her job.'

'He's right,' John says quietly, leaning forward to kiss Sherlock's temple and then sliding off the bed, 'none of this is your fault and nor is it mine. If we're going to blame anyone, it should be Moriarty.'

Sherlock turns his head away and, in an attempt to stop the burning sensation behind his lids, shuts his eyes.

'I'll only be a little longer,' he hears Nurse Hunter say, sotto voice, after five minutes and realises she's addressing John and not him. The fury that being ignored sparks is enough to banish the infuriating upsurge of emotion and he reopens his eyes to glare up at her as she reaches to check his cannula.

'Are you sure you're qualified?' he snaps.

'Of course I am,' she answers but her voice is quivering slightly and she hesitates over actually touching him, 'what a strange question.'

'No. Perfectly logical. After all, I am the patient here yet you address yourself to my alpha. I take this to mean you are unaware that bonded omegas are actually capable of holding conversations and thus, since that is a patently absurd belief which only the terminally stupid would hold, question your professional skills.'

'_Sherlock,_' John says warningly but there's amusement layered into the word and so he chooses to ignore John and continues to glower at the now stuttering nurse.

'I-I … you looked upset, Mr Holmes and I …'

'Oh for goodness sakes,' he gingerly pushes himself up into a fully vertical sitting position, takes a few deep breaths to settle his still unhappy stomach, then imperiously motions for her to hand him his now updated chart. Which she does without question.

'John, come here,' he orders as he runs a finger down it, 'is this .… Am I reading this right?'

'Yes,' John grimaces at the numbers, 'you are, unfortunately. Your hormone levels are still all over the place, your blood count appalling. Your blood pressure is still sky high and you're nearly ten pounds under the minimum recommended weight for an omega of your build at this stage in a pregnancy. Plus, just to top it off, you're severely anaemic too. Although,' he taps the bottom corner of the chart and manages a weak laugh, 'you're no longer dehydrated so it's not all bad.'

'How do I fix it?'

Some of the tension bleeds out of John's frame and he wraps an arm round Sherlock's shoulders.

'You stay here, with me, and you do as you're told; you eat everything you're given, you rest and you sleep until the doctors say otherwise.' He kisses the top of Sherlock's head for emphasis.

'Oh,' Sherlock leans into the hold, burying his face in the familiar warmth of John's jumper clad chest. 'Is that an order?'

'Does it need to be?' He feels John start to run his fingers through his curls and, clumsily, due to the cannula and tube, reciprocates by hugging John round his waist. 'No,' he says softly into the comforting wool, 'it doesn't need to be.'

They stay like that, cocooned in each other, breathing together, even after the Nurse finishes her ineffectual tidying of the already pristine room and leaves.

'Am I allowed to say that such a display of devotion from you is a little unnerving, brother?' Mycroft's voice comes from the bottom of the bed but Sherlock doesn't bother to lift his head, let alone answer.

'You can say what you like,' John answers in his stead, voice viciously icy, 'but unless you're talking about something interesting I doubt Sherlock cares,' he shifts slightly so that he's partially shielding Sherlock from Mycroft, 'I'm sure I don't.'

'I see that I have significant ground to make up before you can forgive my lapse of care, John,' there is a whisper of movement and then the end of the bed sinks slightly, 'and I understand completely. If our positions were reversed I doubt if I could be in the same room as you now. However I do need to debrief you both, if only for the sake of Sherlock's blood pressure.'

'Oh, do get on with it then,' Sherlock twists his head a little so he can see Mycroft from the comfort of John's embrace. 'I presume you are going to tell me that, using the data I sent from Moran's network, your team were able to co-ordinate a unified strike and that what was left of Moriarty's organisation is no longer a threat to John or any one else.'

'Indeed,' Mycroft nods solemnly, 'what you did… what you found by doing that... A lot of people owe you their lives and a huge debt of gratitude, Sherlock. Me most of all.'

Sherlock looks up sharply at that, aware his face is showing his confusion and meets a look of pure pride on Mycroft's face. 'You've been unconscious for a day and a half, Sherlock, so I'm afraid you missed all the excitement. Including the part where the Foreign and Commonwealth office and a good portion of the rest of Whitehall _wasn't_ blown to smithereens by the large amount of explosives that had been installed in Churchill's War Rooms under the guise of structural repairs.'

'I didn't have time to unscramble the code before I sent it,' Sherlock says, more to himself than John or Mycroft, before coming back to himself and asking 'Moran?' whilst trying to pretend indifference to the pleasure Mycroft's approval has sent coursing through his veins.

'I'm sorry to report,' Mycroft begins, although Sherlock has never heard him sound less sorry, 'that Moran attempted to resist arrest whilst in visible possession of a firearm. He was, of course, subdued in accordance with the correct protocol for that situation but subsequently died of his wounds.'

'Good. He was the one tasked with shooting John …. Did he suffer?'

'No more than he deserved.' Mycroft's voice is silken and John shudders involuntarily, Sherlock presumes at the thought of what the amount of pain "deserved" would entail. When John speaks, however, his voice is firm and strong.

'So when can we expect to read about Sherlock's return to life and the restoration of his reputation in the papers?'

'The statements have just gone out,' Mycroft taps a button on his phone and gives a sliver of a satisfied smile. 'Tomorrow the world will be told how Sherlock selflessly volunteered to be the bait in a global operation - involving, amongst other organisations, the security services of Britain, the US and China - to bring down a global drugs, weapons and human trafficking cartel. No once knows you are here and they will all be told you are unavailable for comment. Once you are recovered you will be able to return to 221B without worrying.'

'Thank you,' Sherlock manages to say, although it sounds stiff. 'Now please leave. I'm tired.'

'Goodbye, Mycroft,' John sounds marginally less annoyed with him but the frost is still there, 'and please ensure that Mrs Hudson isn't bothered by the media frenzy that delightful story will generate.'

'Of course,' Mycroft straightens his waistcoat and jacket as he turns to leave but the pauses in the doorway, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as the swings back round to add, 'and congratulations, to you both. If you need anything further do let me know … although I'm afraid it's down to you to tell Father and Mummy your joyous news, Sherlock.'

John barely gets the cardboard bowl in front of Sherlock in time.


End file.
